Strand of the Ancients
|level=71-79, 80 |loc=Dragonblight }} Strand of the Ancients (originally called Sands of Ulduran, but sometimes spelled Sands of Alduran), is a battleground located off the southern coast of the Dragonblight. It was introduced in Wrath of the Lich King. This battleground consists of 3 walls which have to be destroyed to continue, capture points and a graveyard after each wall. The overall goal is to be the first team to get through the last wall. Overview The players will either have to attack, or defend. Attackers will start on 2 boats, preparing to begin the siege. All attackers will begin the fight in the boats which will approach the beach. The defenders will spawn at the graveyard south of the second to last wall and move to defensive positions. When the battleground starts one faction will be assigned to be the attacking team and the other will be assigned to be the defending team. The attacking team lands on the island at the start of the battleground and will use siege weapons to break through the island's walls and capture the city point by point gaining access to new siege weapons along the way. At some point the factions will switch, so the attacking team will become the defending team and vice versa.http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/06/29/wwi-08-notes-from-the-pvp-panel/ It is described as a "D-day invasion scenario".http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=138018&page=2 Entrance Players must be at least level 71 to be eligible to join the Strand of the Ancients Battleground. Brackets are 71-79 and 80. Players must interact with a battlemaster to join Strand of the Ancients. Battlemasters are located in all capitals back in Azeroth, Shattrath City in Outland's Terokkar Forest and Dalaran in Northrend's Crystalsong Forest. There is no known physical entrance at the moment. It is possible that an entrance will be at Moa'ki Harbor and/or The Forgotten Shore, even though this is very unlikely. Basic Rules * The attacking team starts off-shore on two boats, splitting the attacking team. * The defending team starts at South Graveyard and moves to defensive positions on the beach or on the turrets next to the walls. * Horde and Alliance teams of up to 10/15 players; The attackers trying to reach the relic, the defenders trying to slow them down. * NB: Note that there are a total of 6 walls. 2 on each side (times two) and 2 in the middle line to block the way to the end. * Factions gain bonus Honor for each destroyed wall. * There are Siege weapons which will help you to destroy the walls, buildings and enemy players. * As you capture graveyards on both sides, more siege engines will spawn at the depots behind the first gates. This will allot recoup time and faster attacks on the remaining 2 gates. * Defenders can make use of the turrets on the walls to destroy siege vehicles and kill enemy players. * Rounds consist of one team attacking and one defending. A round is completed when a team fails to reach the relic in the alloted time, or a team reaches the relic. 2 Rounds will occur. The faction who reaches the relic in the quickest amount of time wins. Note that a team can win with 1 second on the clock; timing is everything. Also note that the second round attackers have as much time to capture the relic as the opposing team took to attain it, making it (at max) a 20 minute game. Honor Reward System Strand of the Ancients items are available by spending honor accumulated and a varying amount of Strand of the Ancients Mark of Honor. Each victory in Strand of the Ancients awards three marks, and a loss awards one mark. If neither side breaches the final gate the game is drawn awarding all participants a single mark. The Valiance Expedition is the Alliance faction for the battleground, and the Warsong Offensive is the Horde faction. Siege Weapons The Demolisher(50000 HP in 71-79 bracket) *The Demolisher has a short range attack (a ram with knockback) and a long range attack (boulder throw). *It is meant destroy walls up close with its ram attack. As it is slow to turn and the boulder throw takes time to hit, it is less effective against enemy players. *It can hold up to 3 passengers, passengers are exposed and can be targeted individually. However, players can cast while the vehicle is moving if they're in it. *Although it is very powerful, it is slow and not easily maneuverable; it is about as fast as running speed, and has a fixed turning speed. Other Weapons Turret(25000 HP in 71-79 bracket) * Shoots a explosive in the targeted area for 3500 or so damage on demolishers and about 2000 on players in the 71-79 bracket. (2 second CD) Seaforium Charges * Players on the attacking team can pick these up at the docks or at the vehicle emporiums. * When laid, they explode after ten seconds, doing about 25% of the walls' HP. * Defending players can defuse these, and it is imperative they do. * When a player dies while holding one, a barrel will spawn, allowing it to be carried on. * You are allowed to mount while holding a charge. Tactics Some common tactics include rushing walls with charges, leaving so many charges at the wall makes it hard to defuse them before they all go off, Vehicle assault with melee defending the demolishers, or a combination of the two. Defenders should make use of the turrets and pick off rushers as they run in. Paladins on a mount with crusader aura make this very difficult, but noticing the rush can save the wall. Also, try to take out demolishers unless a rusher gets your attention; most of the time, you will be in a lot more trouble against demolishers than a single mage targeting your turret. NOTE: The Alliance always go first, so they get to know their time to capture the relic in the first round; and so can do high DPS on the second round until the time that the Alliance have captured the relic has passed, letting the Horde get the relic. You generally get slightly less Honor this way, however it speeds up the second round quite a bit. Grave Yards On offense, you want to cap the east and west Grave Yards ASAP. Do NOT capture the South Grave yard until the relic door has been destroyed. Capping the south before the walls are down slows down your teams ability to get new tanks back into the fight. On Defense, defend your east and west GY's with a furor. The turrets on the Red and Purple walls can shoot players that are trying to capture them making it very easy for 1 person to defend a GY. Let the Offense cap the south GY if the walls are still up, it will slow them down. Turrets Use Turrets to destroy tanks and defend East and West GYs. A tag team of turret operators at a gate can kill a tank before it reaches the wall. The closer the target is to where the rocket lands the more damage it will take. Up to 6000 dmg against a tank and 3000 against a player. The turrets cannot hit targets beneath them, so a tank that is left or right justified on the wall can only be hit by 1 of the turrets. Tanks Tanks are the best means of winning this fight. As such your team should endeavor to always be in control of 4+ tanks while on offense and should target tanks with max DPS while on Defense. Always capture the East and West GYs to increase tank supply and reduce travel time. Tanks should operate in groups, never go in one at a time. You will get 1) Owned 2) Yelled At 3) Laughed at by opposing team. A note on tanks: ALWAYS DRIVE THEM TO THE WALL. NEVER USE A TANK TO ATTACK PLAYERS. It's pointless to attack players with a tank, just keep the tank moving to the wall and always use the Ram (2 button) and alternate in the Cannon (1 button). Ram does more damage. Strategies Offensive The primary goal of the offense is to get through all the gates to the ancient relic in the keep at the end of the battlegrounds. The gates can only be brought down through seaforium charges and demolishers. When you are coming off the beach, take a seaforium charge if you intend on using it on the gate. This comes useful when you're going against a defensive group that doesn't like to be out further than the gate and therefore wouldn't be able to disarm the charge in time. The defense will probably be waiting by the demolisher on the beach ready to attack it and destroy it before you have a chance to use it. Here and all throughout the game you have to make sure that opposing players on foot can't damage your demolishers, otherwise they'll never make it to the gates they have to knock down. Any players that can do slowing effects and damage from the passenger spots should join the demolishers: * Mages can Frost Nova and Slow. * Druids can use Cyclone and Entangling Roots. * Rogues can use Fan of Knives with Crippling Poison applied or specced into Deadly Brew. * Warriors can Intimidating Shout or Piercing Howl. * Warlocks can Curse of Exhaustion, Howl of Terror, single target Fear. * Death Knights can use Desecration and Chains of Ice. * Priests can use Psychic Scream. * Hunters can use Concussive Shot. * Paladins can use Judgement of Justice. The defending team will have two turrets to every gate, and it's important that if they are manned that ranged players work to destroy them without placing themselves in danger of getting shot by turrets. It's possible that once the gate is down melee players can walk around and attack from there. Capturing the first two graveyards will enable the workshops which allow more demolishers and are a good spot to pick up new seaforium charges. If a Shadowstep or Killing Spree Rogue is on the offensive side, they can use their respective abilities to teleport themselves up behind the turrets and either assault them from there to distract the turret's pilot or run past the gate to capture the next graveyard undetected. Capturing the last graveyard will push the defensive side back to spawn in their own courtyard. If you are having trouble getting tanks through because of players on foot destroying them, synchronize your demolishers to move in at the same time so that focus will be divided, or at least be too focused to take out every tank before they hit the final door. Clicking the orb at the end will instantly win the round. Defensive Right at the start of the game, you want to have people on the turrets for both the blue and the green gates. The rest of the group goes onto the beach getting ready to greet the incoming offense. The demolishers have to be destroyed as soon as possible to prevent the gates from going down. Therefore, the one demolisher on the beach is often popular to destroy first. Demolishers also take priority to kill over players, unless they were hindering your ability to attack the demolisher. If you can crowd control any players trying to intercept your assault on the demolishers, then do so and continue on the demolisher until it is destroyed. Upon destruction, the driver will dismount and be very vulnerable if caught in a large group that just destroyed the demolisher. Pay attention to your map as well. Just because you're holding off people just fine at the purple gate might not mean the same for red. If there are demolishers incoming to the yellow gate, you will have to fall back and destroy it before trying to push forward again on defense. If the yellow gate goes down, you will have to use it as a chokepoint to prevent players and demolishers from getting past. If your entire group has not moved back and tanks are not going down quick enough before being able to touch the door, you will not have the best chance of lasting the timer. While in the final courtyard, a few players on the offensive side tend to stray off and go west towards a pile of seaforium charges. If they are not intercepted, they will circumvent your group to the door and plant the seaforium charge. If the door to the keep goes down, do your best to drag out the timer for as long as possible by keeping players out of range of the orb either through snares, disorients, stuns, or knockbacks. Any player on the opposing team has to be just lucky enough to charge through and click on the orb in order for the offensive team to win the round. Problems With this Battle Ground 1) Some classes are able to move through walls before they are down. 2) Tank operators and turret operators do not get as much honor as they don't get as many honor kills - making it undesireable to operate these items. 3) Alliance has to wait 5 seconds after defending the BG starts to attack tanks. Horde does not. 4) Horde always starts on defense. This can cause a problem if horde members do not join quickly enough to man turret stations and start offensive attacks. By the time Horde is on offense, battleground is typically full. 5) Classes with pets may have difficulty operating tanks or turrets. External links Category:Battlegrounds Category:Northrend Category:Wrath of the Lich King